


Canada

by frankiesin



Series: Choir Tour is Wild! [3]
Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - Middle School, Choir Tour, Fan Culture - Freeform, First Crush, M/M, Pining, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-09 04:55:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18909991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankiesin/pseuds/frankiesin
Summary: Brendon, Spencer, Dallon, Ryan, and Jon go on their second tour to Canada. Shenanigans and future squad plans ensue, and Ryan comes to a realisation.





	Canada

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, welcome back to the Choir Tour AU; Dallon is Tally in this fic, as they aren't aware of their trans-ness yet. Also, this fic is some foreshadowing for future ships in this universe. The kids are still on the younger end, so they don't know their sexualities/genders yet and they're still exploring. They'll figure it out, though.

Tally stood in front of her bathroom mirror. She’d grown out her bangs during the school year, along with a lot of other changes. Seventh grade had been the year that Tally got into music and video games, and also the year she’d discovered a group of cosplayers on YouTube known as Parle Productions. The people of Parle were British, and while watching their videos, Tally had developed a British accent of her own.She hadn’t shown it to her church friends yet, but she’d decided that this summer would be the summer where she embraced her new talent. 

 

Tally had also purchased a neon blue hair clip in, and she was trying to figure out where best to put it in her hair. Her mom thought it was ridiculous, but Tally loved it. Her friend Ryan (not the one from church) was the one who’d helped her get into video games and music, and he’d recently convinced his parents to let him dye his whole hair black. He’d mentioned to Tally that he was slowly convincing them to let him go blue. This was Tally’s way of matching him. 

 

She’d packed everything for choir tour already, and she was excited. They were going to go all the way to Canada this year, and Tally knew that she could use those hours on the bus to introduce her friends to the world of Parle. Tally didn’t know if she and her friends could ever cosplay as well as the Parle people, but she wanted to get into cosplaying herself, and she knew she couldn’t do it alone. 

 

“Taylor, we’re leaving in five minutes!” Tally’s mom called from downstairs. Tally frowned. She’d been trying to get people to call her Tally all year, and so far most people were cool with it. Her teachers hadn’t cared, and neither had her friends, but her parents insisted on calling her Taylor, Their argument was that they’d named her Taylor, and therefore she had no choice but to go by it. 

 

It was the dumbest reason Tally had heard in her life, but they were her parents so she couldn’t really argue with them. 

 

Tally grabbed her backpack from her bedroom and put on her Converse. She’d gotten a laptop for her birthday (small, periwinkle blue) and she’d packed it for the trip. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to pull up YouTube on the bus, as there was no wifi, but once they got to the hotels, Tally would be ready. Sure, there were rules that boys and girls couldn’t be in rooms alone, but Tally wasn’t going to be doing anything inappropriate with Jon, Ryan, or Brendon. She was just going to show them some videos. 

 

Admittedly, a lot of the Parle videos were inappropriate for a church trip. Tally had learned that most things were either fun, or church appropriate. They were rarely both. 

 

She and her mom were some of the first people there. Tally made her way over to the bus, grabbing a few seats for herself and her friends, and then headed back to the main area. She grabbed a booth near the door so that she’d be able to see her friends when they arrived. 

 

Jon was the first. He and his sister came in, dragging their suitcases behind them. Jon immediately split off from her to run over to where Tally was sitting. He slid in across from her and spread out over the booth. He still had quite the baby face and his dark brown hair had been flat-ironed down over his forehead. 

 

“Welcome back,” Tally said. She leaned over the table. “Nice hair, by the way.”

 

“Thanks,” Jon said. He flattened it further over his head. “I got tired of looking like a character from Lord of the Rings, I guess.”

 

“You mean a hobbit?”

 

“Yeah, one of those,” Jon said. He pulled his legs up and wrapped his arms around them. “So, what’s the plan for this trip? Do we have seats?”

 

“I got some, but if you wanna add your stuff to them, go ahead,” Tally said. She motioned outside, to where the buses were waiting. 

 

“Let’s do that,” Jon said. He sat up again, grabbing his suitcase. Tally lead him out to the bus, where he explained that his sister had volunteered to be a chaperone on the trip now that she was finished with high school and couldn’t come along as a member of the choir herself. Apparently, she’d made a bunch of friends during her two years at this church, and some of them hadn’t graduated yet. 

 

Brendon came next, along with his dad. Luckily, neither of the Urie parents were chaperoning on this trip. Tally didn’t hate Brendon’s parents, but they could get annoying. They were overwhelming. They made sure Brendon (and by extension, his friends) prayed before every meal and every trip they all took. Tally wouldn’t be surprised if they both sweated Biblical verses. 

 

Jon bumped his shoulder against Brendon’s the moment Brendon’s dad left. “Excited about your first trip with no chaperones?”

 

“Isn’t your sister a chaperone?”

 

Tally rolled her eyes. “He means your parents, Bren.”

 

Brendon’s eyes widened. “Oh man, we’re gonna be able to do anything now!”

 

Jon laughed, and mentioned something about a swimming pool. Tally ignored the lump of jealousy in her throat. She’d missed a lot last summer, when she’d been grounded and unable to go on tour with her friends. She’d been able to hang out with them during the school year, but there was something about choir tour. Tally had never been on one, but she knew in her heart that choir tour was better than anything else she could experience. 

 

She squared her shoulders and smiled through the sadness. “We’re going to a different country. Anything’s possible.”

 

“ _ Everything’s _ possible,” Jon said, grinning. “Canada won’t know what’s hit it.”

 

* * *

 

They were in Lexington Kentucky. Specifically, they were in a place called Skyline Chili. According to the youth pastor, this was the best Chili to ever exist. Spencer didn’t know if she believed him, but she did know that shit was about to get very interesting. 

 

“Look, I know it’s weird, but I  _ swear _ it’s a thing,” Brendon said. He had a thing of pop rocks, and was shoving it towards Jon while Ryan held back laughter. “There are people near my neighbourhood who are selling crystal meth disguised as pop rocks! My mom and dad got an email about it and everything.”

 

“I still don’t know why I have to be the one to pretend to snort meth,” Jon said. He looked over to Tally for support. “Do I look like the kind of person who does meth?”

 

“I don’t know anyone who does meth,” she said, shrugging. “So maybe?”

 

Jon gave Spencer a mean look, and she responded by taking his drink and slurping from it for a long moment. She’d missed the four of them. School had gotten weird, now that everyone was hitting puberty and getting into makeup and shit. Spencer had missed that memo, and instead of makeup she’d gotten into softball. She was good at it, really good, but kids at school had started spreading rumours that she was a lesbian. 

 

Spencer had no idea if she was a lesbian. She didn’t know if she wanted to date anyone, girl or guy or otherwise. She could see herself dating Jon, maybe, but she didn’t know how that would be different from her being friends with Jon now. 

 

“Come on, Jon, don’t be lame,” Ryan said. He was barely holding back laughter. Spencer kicked him under the table, and Ryan glared at her. “What was that for, Spence?”

 

“Do it yourself,” Spencer said, before she could stop herself. She didn't think Ryan would actually do it. It wasn’t that Ryan was a coward. It was that his dad had a lot of issues and Ryan spent a lot of time trying to seperate himself from his dad. Ryan didn’t want to be anything like his dad, and that included not doing drugs, or even pretending to do drugs. 

 

Ryan stared at her for a moment. “Nah, I think Jon should do it.”

 

“I’ll do it if you drink hot sauce,” Jon said. He then proceeded to grab the bottle of hot sauce off of the table and turn it over into Ryan’s water. Spencer couldn’t help but be proud of him for that mood. 

 

Ryan looked down at his glass, and then up at Jon. Beside Spencer, Brendon was vibrating with excitement, and Tally had pulled out her camcorder to get the whole thing on film. She’d decided that she wanted to start a YouTube channel for all of their adventures. Spencer thought it was a good idea. Since they didn’t hang out constantly, the videos wouldn’t be repetitive, and it would be cool to watch them back later when they were all adults and nostalgic and shit. 

 

“Oh shit,” Jon whispered as Ryan tipped the cup to his lips and drank the hot sauce water. Jon’s eyes widened further when Ryan sat the cup back down and didn’t look at all phased by what he’d done. Jon swallowed, looked down at the pop rocks sitting in the middle of the table. He slowly reached out towards the bag while Ryan was watching him, and ripped it open. Jon poured a few pop rocks into his hand. 

 

“Oh my gosh,” Tally said. “He’s actually going to do it.”

 

“You’re getting this on camera, right?” Brendon asked. 

 

Tally nodded. 

 

In the booth behind them, Pete Wentz turned around to see what was going on. Spencer had no idea why he’d suddenly become interested in their friend group. She assumed it had something to do with their late night swimming adventure last year. Pete was a lot cooler than the rest of them, in that he had dyed a strip of his hair bright red and his parents allowed him to go to concerts with other high school kids. 

 

Pete was also about to start high school, and Ryan definitely had some kind of boner for him, but Spencer wasn’t going to be the one to bring that up. Ryan was weird about gay shit. Spencer didn’t want to piss him off by suggesting that his interest in Pete was something other than admiration. Spencer didn’t know why why Ryan has such an issue with people thinking he was gay. She’d dealt with a few people at school calling her a lesbian, and it wasn’t horrible. Sure, it was annoying because Spencer wasn’t a lesbian and she didn’t want her parents to find out and ask her about it, but it wasn’t a big deal. 

 

Jon took a deep breath and looked straight into Tally’s camera before dipping his head down and inhaling some of the pop rocks. Almost immediately, he started coughing and pressed the back of his other hand to his nose in disgust. Spencer and Brendon were laughing, and Ryan was leaning over to see what it all looked like through Tally’s viewfinder. 

 

Jon reached across the table and tried to punch Ryan in the arm. There were tears forming at the corners of his eyes as he coughed again. “You’re the worst, Ross.”

 

“It was Brendon’s idea!” Ryan exclaimed, pointing frantically at Brendon. 

 

Brendon threw his hands up. “I did nothing wrong.”

 

“You did everything wrong,” Jon said. His voice sounded clogged up, as though he was dealing with a bad bout of the flu. He grabbed a couple of napkins and blew his face into them. Spencer was still laughing, and she got a kick to her ankle for it. Jon glared at her from behind the tissues. “You try keeping a straight face while there’s a bunch of sugar popping in your nose.”

 

“No thanks,” Spencer said. She pulled her baseball cap down over her forehead. “I’ve seen what that looks like. I’m good.”

 

“I hate all of you,” Jon said. He motioned to Pete. “Even you. Especially you, you on-looker. You’re supposed to be all mature and shit and step in when someone gets bullied, but you just  _ watched _ . That’s the ultimate form of betrayal.”

 

“Sorry man,” Pete said. He flipped his bangs away from his face, and they fell right back over his eye. “You looked like you were doing okay.”

 

Jon fixed Pete with a glare that was immediately followed by him offering Pete some pop rocks. And like that, Pete was welcomed into the group, and five became six. Spencer didn’t know if it was permanent, or if Pete was only a part of their friend group for as long as he could stand them, but it changed things. 

 

The next day, Spencer ended up sitting with Tally on the bus, Jon with Brendon, and Pete with Ryan. As if that was normal, and how things had always been. Spencer tried not to get annoyed. There was nothing  _ wrong _ with Pete. She’d gotten so used to Ryan being her best friend that she didn’t know what to do when he was more interested in someone who wasn’t her. 

 

Spencer tried not to dwell on it. They were on their way to Buffalo New York. And then, after Buffalo, they were going to cross the border to Ontario, and that was the coolest thing ever. 

 

* * *

 

Brendon looked out of the bus, and his eyes widened when he realised they were already at Niagara Falls. He’d never been, and he’d promised to take plenty of pictures for his mom and dad. That was how he’d gotten out of them chaperoning: a promise of thousands of pictures. He’d gotten to borrow his dad’s camera just for this trip, and he’d been using it as much as he could. Sure, a lot of his pictures were of his friends being dumb in front of various signs, but it was better than nothing. 

 

Brendon wanted his parents to like what he did. He always felt, as the oldest of five, that he had to set a good example. He had to be someone that his younger siblings would want to grow up to be like. He had to be good enough, always, no matter the context. It was a lot of pressure, but Brendon needed it. He did his best under pressure, and the more the better. 

 

He lead his friends (and Pete) off of the bus. They ended up in the same group as Patrick, with his mom as their assigned chaperone. Overall, it wasn’t the worst possible group. Pete tended to get along with everyone, and so he took up most of Patrick’s attention while Brendon made his friends all pose in front of the waterfall.

 

“Dude, my hair is going to look ridiculous after this,” Jon said and he shuffled under the one of the ponchos they’d all received. 

 

Ryan rolled his eyes. “Don’t be a girl about it.”

 

“I’m not,” Jon said. He pointed at Ryan’s hands. “You’re the one with nail polish on.”

 

“It’s punk rock,” Ryan said. Brendon believed him. He’d seen quite a few male rock stars wearing nail polish. Sure, one of them had turned out to be gay (Adam Lambert), but overall it just seemed like a thing that guys did to try and be cool and edgy. Ryan wasn’t cool, but maybe he was edgy. Brendon wasn’t the best judge of character when it came to that kind of thing. He thought everyone was edgy. 

 

The eight of them (Patrick’s mom included) headed off into the falls. Brendon kept his camera out the entire time, his hands going slightly numb as he tried to get good pictures. It was cold under here, with the spray from the falls getting rid of any warmth from the sun. It was very different from Brendon’s usual summers, which were hot and humid and made him want a popsicle or two. 

 

Brendon pressed himself against the bars and leaned over, trying to touch the spray with the hand that wasn’t still grasping onto the camera. 

 

“Be careful, dude,” Jon’s voice said from Brendon’s left. Brendon ignored him. There was a juvenile part of him that wanted to show off in front of Spencer, and that same part of him had a feeling that Jon was trying to go out with Spencer first. Brendon didn’t want to be jealous of his friend, but he couldn’t help it. He was thirteen, full of uneven hormones and a desperate need to prove that he was a little bit cool. Somehow, that translated into leaning over a fence to touch water without dropping his camera. 

 

He didn’t drop his camera. He grinned at Jon when he pulled back, daring Jon to say something. Jon didn’t say anything. Brendon, once he was far enough away to think rationally again, didn’t know why Jon would have said anything. Jon didn’t know that Brendon liked Spencer. Jon didn’t even know that Brendon had been acting out to try and get Spencer’s attention in the first place. 

 

It didn’t matter, really. 

 

“Hey, Brendon, get one of me and Tally doing the Titanic thing,” Spencer called out. She was already pulling Tally towards one end of the tour boat, despite Tally’s protests that she couldn’t get her new camcorder wet. Spencer shook her head at her friend. “Just shove it under your poncho. You’ll be fine.”

 

Brendon followed the two girls over to the edge of the boat. Tally spread her arms out and Spencer leaned up on her toes to put her hands on Tally’s waist and look over her shoulder. Tally had continued to get taller, whereas Spencer was still on the shorter side, and so Spencer could barely see over Tally. Brendon thought it would make more sense for Spencer to be in the Rose position, but he didn’t bring it up. Spencer wouldn’t agree to that. She probably thought she was more like Jack than Rose, anyway. 

 

After the boat ride, they all got to split off into small groups and explore the city. Pete was in their group again, but Brendon had accepted that he was going to be an honorary sixth member of their group, at least for the duration of the trip. Brendon hoped that, once they all got back home, Pete would go back to his own friends and leave the rest of them alone. Ryan was the only one who really liked him, after all. Not that Ryan would admit it, because Ryan was weird and refused to admit that he was friends with anyone besides Spencer. 

 

They ended up in a Hershey store, somehow. Brendon’s eyes went wide at all the different chocolates. His parents were against sweet stuff, saying that it was the modern day apple in the garden of Eden. Brendon didn’t agree with them, but he wasn’t going to betray his parents’ trust. 

 

“Holy shit, Brendon, look at that,” Jon said. He pointed at the far wall, which had a giant chocolate bar on it. Jon grabbed Brendon’s arm and pulled him over. 

 

“It’s fifty dollars,” Brendon breathed out. He had sixty left for the rest of the trip. He had no idea how much Jon’s parents had given him, or how much Jon had already bought. He shoved his hand into his pocket and wrapped his fingers around his wallet. “We could split it?”

 

“Brilliant,” Jon said, faking an English accent. He glanced over his shoulder, to make sure that Tally wasn’t within earshot, and then grinned at Brendon. “She’s rubbing off on me.”

 

Brendon shrugged. “It’s not the worst that could happen.”

 

“So are we doing this?” Jon asked. He pulled his own wallet out (it was styled to look like a comic book and was starting to fall apart; Brendon was jealous of how accidentally cool it looked), and poked around. “I’ve got thirty bucks.”

 

“You can do twenty and I’ll do the rest?” Brendon offered. He didn’t want Jon to be completely broke over a giant bar of chocolate.

 

“You sure?”

 

Brendon nodded fervently. He was sure. He wanted this. He also knew that he and Jon could finish it before they got back home, and then his parents would never have to know. 

 

Jon broke out into a grin. “Then let’s do this.”

 

The two boys grabbed the giant bar and headed to the counter. The cashier looked amused as she rang them up, and even more amused when the two of them tried doing the math with tax included. Brendon had forgotten all about taxes. He didn’t think about them, because he was twelve and he wasn’t supposed to need to know about taxes yet, but they made the bar about four dollars more. 

 

In the end, Jon payed twenty dollars, Brendon paid the rest (as they’d originally planned), and Jon promised to get Brendon something later. 

 

Brendon had a bag, and so he was in charge of carrying the chocolate and making sure it didn’t melt in the heat. It wasn’t as warm in Canada as it had been back home, but it was still incredibly hot and Brendon could feel his skin getting darker the longer he was outside. Of his friends, he was the only one who really got dark in the summer, and that was because of his mom. She was Polynesian, and Brendon had inherited a lot of his colouration from her instead of his dad. 

 

He didn’t get picked on because of that, though. The kids at school were always more creative. When they made fun of him, it was because he was too loud, or too energetic, or didn’t know when to shut up about things that interested him. 

 

Brendon sucked at social cues, basically. He didn’t know how to stop sucking, and that made school worse. Luckily, his choir tour friends had never cared that he was awkward and loud and interested in things that weren’t really cool. They liked him, for some reason, and they let him be a part of their group no matter what. 

 

“Hey, check this out,” Jon said. He pointed at the ground with one flip-flopped foot. There was a star underneath it, with Michael Jackson’s name carved into it. “It’s like that Hollywood walk thing.”

 

“Didn’t Michael Jackson just die?” Spencer asked. She had her hands on her hips and her sunglasses propped up on her baseball cap. She wrinkled her nose, and Brendon thought it was adorable. “Maybe they’re only for dead celebrities.”

 

“That’s ominous,” Pete said. He looked over his shoulder at the other stars around them, and pointed to one a few feet away. “But you’re wrong. That one has Harrison Ford on it, and I’m pretty sure he’s not dead.”

 

Spencer pulled her sunglasses down over her eyes. “Maybe so.”

 

“Where’s David Bowie?” Tally asked. Because of course Tally wanted to find David Bowie. Brendon didn’t fully understand her interest in him, or where it had come from, but all Tally had been talking about for the past month was how cool David Bowie was, and how much she loved his music. Spencer had found an old biography about him from the 80s while she and Brendon had been going through her parent’s attic things, and they’d decided to give it to Tally over the trip. 

 

Brendon didn’t know if Spencer had done it or not. He wanted to see Tally’s face when she got it, though. He had a feeling she’d flip out in the best way. 

 

The six of them started walking down the sidewalk again, occasionally pausing to point out a star that the recognised. Brendon posed with the Frank Sinatra one, because he knew his mom and dad loved Sinatra’s music, and he wanted to give them something from this trip. Spencer and Ryan posed on either side of the Tony Hawk star, careful to keep their Converse off of it. 

 

Brendon decided that he was going to learn how to skateboard. He needed to have something in common with Spencer outside of church and choir. If he was a skater boy, then she’d like him. Definitely. 

 

“Oh my God!” Tally’s voice cut through Brendon’s half formed plans, and he jumped around to see her racing down the street. She fell into a baseball slide, her hair flying around her face and her hands slapping down onto the pavement in front of two people on a bench. 

 

Brendon raced after her, catching up in time for her to turn around with the largest grin on her face. She pointed down at the name on the star. “I found him.”

 

“How did you see that from all the way over there?” Brendon laughed. Sure enough, Tally was sitting next to David Bowie’s star, as ecstatic as he’d ever seen her. 

 

Tally grinned. “I’ve got Bowie senses.”

 

Brendon didn’t know what that meant. He figured he could ask her later, when they were back at the hotel and all in the boys’ room. Sure, it was technically against the rules, but the five of them didn’t care much for those rules. As long as Tally and Spencer didn’t stay the night, there was no reason for the chaperones to get upset with them. They weren’t sharing beds or anything weird like that. They were just hanging out. 

 

* * *

 

Jon wasn’t sure how it had happened, but he, Ryan, and Brendon had managed to get a room without a fourth. Pete was their unofficial fourth, as he and Ryan were now attached to the hip, but Jon figured he’d go back to his own room once the girls did. It would be weird if he didn’t, especially because he was with actual eighth graders, and Jon couldn’t imagine why he’d want to spend the night with younger kids. 

 

So it was the six of them, crowded onto one of the two hotel beds, and Tally had her laptop out. She’d decided that it was important for all of them to watch Demyx Time and understand why she kept talking about it. Jon didn’t know anything about the characters, but he liked video games and he liked comedy, so he figured he’d try it out. 

 

They were British. Tally hadn’t mentioned that. They were British, and they were all wearing black cloaks. Some of them were trying to do an American accent, which Jon thought was hilarious, because they all sucked at it. 

 

Then again, Tally’s British accent also kind of sucked, so he supposed it was fair. 

 

“We could do something like this,” Spencer said. She was still wearing her baseball hat. Jon wondered if she ever took it off. 

 

“Like a YouTube channel?” Pete asked. 

 

“Like a  _ cosplay _ YouTube channel?” Ryan asked. Jon couldn’t tell if he thought the idea was stupid or cool. Ryan was very good at keeping his opinions hidden behind his voice. 

 

“Who would we even cosplay as?” Spencer asked. She looked over at Tally, quickly, and then back to her best friend. “It could be fun, but like, I don’t know a lot about it. Or about Kingdom Hearts, which is what Tally’s super into right now.”

 

“I haven’t actually played the game,” Tally said. Her cheeks were red as she said it, clearly embarrassed to have to admit it out loud. “I’ve been piecing it together through Parle and through the fandom, though, so I know what’s going on and I know enough about the characters that I could fill you guys in if you wanted me to.”

 

Jon looked over at Brendon, who’d been suspiciously quiet during the discussion. Usually, Brendon had something to say about anything the rest of them brought up. Brendon was the vocal one. Jon flicked his bangs out of his face. “Brendon, what do you think?”

 

“I don’t know if my parents would let me do it,” Brendon said. He wasn’t looking at any of them, instead staring down at the mattress as though it could jump up and bite him. “They… they think video games are bad. I don’t get it, but… there’s not much I can do about it.”

 

“You don’t have to tell them,” Spencer said. 

 

Brendon looked up at her as though she’d just explained how all of the universe worked. Jon bit the inside of his mouth so that he didn’t laugh, because the whole situation was kind of funny to him. He had an older sister, and he’d seen how she treated their parents. It was like watching two spies from opposite sides of the battlefield duke it out, each one trying to expose the other without getting burned themself. 

 

Teenagers and parents were mortal enemies, and part of that rivalry involved not telling the other party anything. Jon was surprised that it had taken Brendon this long to figure it out for himself. Sure, he was an oldest child, but so was Spencer and she seemed to know what was up. 

 

“Yeah, dude, if you ever need an excuse you can just ask us to cover for you,” Pete said. He grinned. “How do you think I got band merch? By asking nicely? Nah, I lied through my teeth and hid it at a friend’s house until I knew my mom had forgotten all about it.”

 

“But… you shouldn’t lie to your parents?” Brendon asked. 

 

“It’s not really lying,” Jon offered, even though he knew that it was. “It’s more like… we’re not kids anymore, but they think that we are, and they try to treat us like we’re babies. The only way to get independence is to take it from them.”

 

“That’s how America did it,” Spencer said. She shrugged. “Why should we be any different?”

 

“Brendon and I have to be extra careful, though, since our parents are friends with each other,” Tally said. She opened up a Word document on her laptop and turned it towards the rest of them. “I have a flash drive. We can put all of our cosplay plans on it, and then my parents won’t be able to see it if they check my laptop. We can also make emails, and use that to communicate.”

 

Ryan nodded. “Good plan. But whatever your email is, make sure it’s not related to your name. And don’t stay logged in once you’re done using it. I did that once, and then my dad found it and got pissed at me because he thought I had a girlfriend.”

 

“Did you have a girlfriend?” Pete asked. 

 

“No,” Ryan said. “I was just talking to Spencer.”

 

“And Ryan and I aren’t dating,” Spencer said. She wrinkled her nose. “That would be weird.”

 

“Tell me about it,” Ryan said, making an equally disturbed face. “Dating you would be like dating a sister. Gross.”

 

“So once we all have emails, then what?” Brendon blurted out. Jon couldn’t confirm it, but he was pretty sure that Brendon had a crush on Spencer, and that was why he kept on trying to derail conversations when they all started talking about Ryan and Spencer’s friendship. Spencer and Ryan were closer than the rest of them, but that was because they’d grown up together. It really would be weird if they started dating, at least in Jon’s mind. 

 

Luckily, the conversation moved back to this cosplay idea. Tally was excited, and was more than willing to take the lead on the project. Apparently there was an anime convention coming up in their hometown in September, and Tally was convinced that the five of them (six, if Pete decided to join) would have their costumes together in time to go. 

 

Jon made a mental note to start saving his allowance so that he could get a cloak, and to start looking into the game itself. It seemed fun, but all he knew about it was from Demyx Time and from Tally’s rambling. He had no idea what else Kingdom Hearts would entail, but he was willing to find out. 

 

* * *

 

Ryan knew that Spencer and Brendon were a trainwreck waiting to happen. He wasn’t blind, and he knew that Brendon had a crush on his best friend. 

 

He also knew that Brendon would never make the first move, because Brendon was a baby like that and Spencer was somehow intimidating. 

 

Ryan was not intimidated by Spencer. If he was, he wouldn’t have been friends with her for so long. 

 

He didn’t know how he felt about Tally’s con idea. He and Pete had been getting into music more than video games, and Ryan had spent a lot of afternoons over at Pete’s mom’s house, listening to Black Veil Brides and Blink 182 in Pete’s room. Pete had also bought black nail polish, saying that it was okay for guys to wear so long as it was  _ only  _ black. Any other colour was gay. 

 

Ryan didn’t tell Pete that he didn’t see any issue with being gay. Well, other than the fact that Ryan  _ wasn’t _ gay himself, of course. He just… didn’t care if other guys were. Sure, it would be weird if a gay guy hit on him, but Ryan was willing to accept flirting from girls, and he figured it wouldn’t be much different coming from a guy. 

 

It was the last day of tour. They were all spending it at a theme park in the middle of Ohio, near Cincinnati. Ryan had never been to Ohio before, and so far he thought it was pretty boring. The theme park looked cool, if nothing else. 

 

Ryan and Spencer had gone to Six Flags last summer, with Spencer’s parents and her little sisters. The two of them had split off from the rest of the family and tried to get on every ride before the day was over, but the lines had all been long as hell, and Spencer had ended up with sunburn on her face and her arms.

 

Ryan didn’t burn the way Spencer did. He figured he was lucky like that, but he also didn’t have any deep seated desire to get tan. That was what all the jocks did, and they were stupid anyway. 

 

“Hey, you wanna go on that?” Pete asked, pointing around Ryan to a drop tower. The two of them were at the back of the group, and had been looking for a way to sneak off all afternoon. Pete had a phone, and he had their chaperone’s number, so it wasn’t like they’d get left behind in Ohio. 

 

“Hell yeah,” Ryan said. He glanced over at the rest of his friends, who were all looking down at the map and trying to decide where they wanted to go next. They weren’t paying attention to him and Pete. Now was their chance. “Let’s go, before they notice we’re not paying attention.”

 

Pete nodded, and slipped off. Ryan followed, easily keeping up with his long legs. He was taller than Pete, which was cool because Pete was older than him. Pete was wearing bleach-stained skinny jeans, and looked a lot cooler than Ryan in his cargo shorts and old summer camp t-shirt. The two boys didn’t look like they belonged together, except that Ryan’s hair was just as swoopy as Pete’s, despite being a boring brown instead of Pete’s jet black.

 

The line for the tower wasn’t as bad as some of the others had been. Pete grinned back at Ryan. “Don’t be a baby.”

 

Ryan rolled his eyes. “As if. I’m not the short one here. You look like a baby.”

 

“I do not,” Pete said, and shoved at Ryan. Ryan smiled despite himself. He always felt a little weird about Pete, but it was a good kind of weird. It was the same way he felt when he was actually on a rollercoaster. It was like being weightless, except he was still held down by the earth’s gravity. 

 

They got cut off right before they could get on, but that meant that Ryan had a good view of the ride. He leaned his head back and watched as everyone before them went up into the sky. Feet were dangling. A single flip flop fell down and smacked against the pavement, and Ryan snorted, thinking of Jon and how he’d decided to wear flip flops to an amusement park even though he was going to go on every roller coaster. 

 

Hopefully Jon didn’t lose his shoes. That would make the end of the trip weird.

 

The circle of people stopped at the top. Ryan could faintly hear the announcer speaking over the intercom. There was a beat of silence, followed by the sound of the locking mechanism coming undone, followed by screaming as everyone fell together. Ryan didn’t bother holding back the grin of secondhand adrenaline he felt, and squeezed his hand around the railing. 

 

Pete was bouncing beside him. “We’re next, dude. Shit, we’re next!”

 

“I know,” Ryan grinned back as the ride came to a halt. The two boys were practically vibrating with excitement, waiting for the riders before them to all unload so that the attendant would undo the chain and let them on. 

 

When the final rider got off, the chain came off, and Ryan and Pete rushed forward. Pete grabbed Ryan’s arm and pulled him around to the far side, and the two of them climbed up into their seats. Pete had to wiggle to get up into his, as his legs were too short to reach the seat on his own. 

 

Ryan laughed at him. 

 

“Shut up, giraffe boy,” Pete said. He was smiling, though, and Ryan felt another rush of zero gravity as the light glinted off of Pete’s golden eyes.

 

With a click, they were secured. Pete’s grin was so large that it felt as though it was going to split his face in half. His hand was resting on the space between the seats, and for a moment Ryan wondered what would happen if he put his own hand down over Pete’s.

 

The ride lifted off, and they slowly started to spin as they rose into the air. Ryan could see the whole park from up here, and in a moment of adrenaline induced mania, he dropped his own hand down over Pete’s. He didn’t dare look at Pete, hoping that, if Pete thought it was weird, he’d be able to play it off as an accident. 

 

Pete turned his hand over under Ryan’s, and curled his fingers up to interlace them with his. Ryan felt like the ride had released early and he was already falling. 

 

Maybe… maybe the black nail polish wasn’t him and Pete being punk rock. Maybe it was him and Pete being gay. 

 

Pete squeezed his hand as they came to a stop. They still weren’t looking at each other. Ryan knew that, if they did anything wrong, if they moved too quickly, the moment would be broken and they’d have to go back to acting like they weren’t anything but friends. It was a dangerous, thin rope to walk on, and Ryan was willing to run. 

 

The voice over the intercom was reciting Ring Around the Rosie. Ryan tapped his finger against Pete’s hand to the rhythm of the song. 

 

“We all fall--” the intercom paused, and the locks released. Ryan crushed Pete’s hand with his grip and Pete screamed, “You lied!!” as they fell back down. Ryan was laughing before he realised the noise was escaping his mouth, and Pete was still holding his hand even as the earth came back up to meet them.

 

They jerked to a stop, and both boys let go before the ride slowly returned them to the ground. 

 

Back to reality, then. Ryan could live with that. He’d held Pete’s hand, and the world hadn’t ended. He didn’t need anything else from him. A hand was already enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Demyx Time is an actual web series and it very much shaped who I am today as a person. Like... an embarrassing amount. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, please leave a comment/kudos if you enjoyed!


End file.
